Name Dorjana Sirola | ||
Dorjana Širola (born 9 June 1972) is a Croatian quizzer, linguist and anglicist. She was the highest placed woman at the World Quizzing Championship in seven years from 2005 to 2011, and again in 2013. She was also the winner of the University Challenge (UC) quiz in 2002 as a member of the University of Oxford, Somerville College team and the winner of the University Challenge: The Professionals (UCP) quiz in 2006 as a member of the Bodleian Library team. She is the only person to have won both UC and UCP and the only person who has won University Challenge twice in two different teams. In 2011 she won Silver with her club "Europalia" (Derk de Graaf (Netherlands), Thomas Kolåsæter (Norway), Holger Waldenberger (Germany)) at the European Quizzing Championships in Bruges
She obtained her B.A. from the University of Zagreb in 1996 in general linguistics and English language and literature; her M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall in 1998 in English language and applied linguistics; and her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, Somerville College in 2005 in comparative philology and general linguistics.
Her area of research covers writing systems, writing-phonology interface; historical linguistics, comparative linguistics, Restsprachen and language variation. She currently works as a senior assistant lecturer at the University of Rijeka in Rijeka, Croatia.